Hey friends!
Welcome to my very first blog! For my first post I would like to tell you about how I found the World Race.
This past summer, my family flew back to America to visit family and friends who we hadn’t seen since moving to China. Right before we moved, some of our close family friends had moved to Costa Rica. It was sad going back to the States without them there..that’s when we decided FaceTime wasn’t enough.
It had been over a year since I had seen them and I knew if I didn’t go while I was in America, I wouldn’t see them for years more. With the little amount of money I had, I booked the flight and flew to Costa Rica. I stayed for 10 days (best 10 days ever btw) and joined into their family like always. We went to church, rode bikes to brunch and searched for the perfect seashells to make a wind chime. On Wednesdays they invite a bunch of friends over to eat dinner, play games and just hangout. A team from The World Race had been working in their community so they were invited too. That Wednesday one of the men wanted to speak a bit about what they had been doing since they launched. I had never heard of the World Race so at first I was totally confused when he said they will be serving for 11 months….that is a very, very long time. At this point I was definitely interested. He talked about all the amazing things God was doing and what an amazing experience it had been for him. I thought it was wicked cool but was also still thinking about how long 11 months is.
I have always known I am supposed to be in missions but never had any idea on where to start, or when to start, or how to start. With only having one more year of high school, everyone was asking about college, which I definitely knew I could not go to straight out of high school. I don’t like school and right now, cannot imagine paying for another 4 years of it. So I knew I had to find something to do in the mission field, that didn’t require a degree and allowed an 18 year old fresh out of high school. Options are very limited, incase you’re wondering.
While standing in the DMV with my dad for the sixth hour, I told him about The World Race. He told me I should look into it more and think about doing it. So..while still waiting in line at the DMV I googled it. I immediately saw you have to be 21 in order to attend, I was highly disappointed but then saw the numbers “18-20”. I clicked on it and read more. I loved everything I was reading. It was perfect. Especially since it is only 9 months. I told my dad more about it and he said I should apply, just to see what happens. I waited until the Gap Year 2019 routes came out and applied immediately. While waiting for a response I read tons of blogs and watched even more YouTube videos. I knew this was for me. So here I am, one month later, writing my very first blog and starting the task of fundraising for this amazing journey.
Ariauna 🙂
